Papers Of Abraham Lincoln

In force 1st March, 1837.

AN ACT in relation to Champaign county.
1

When county commissioners receive money.

May apply it to building a bridg &c.[etc.]

Sec.[Section] 1. Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General Assembly, That when the county commissioners court of Champaign county shall receive the sum of four hundred dollars, from the commissioners of the Gallatin Saline, in accordance with the provisions of an act of the legislature in force January 31st 1835, for changing an appropriation heretofore made to the county commissioners court of Vermilion county, to the county commissioners court of Champaign county, and for other purposes, that said county commissioners court of Champaign county, be and they are hereby authorized to apply said sum of four hundred dollars, to the building of a bridge across the salt fork of the Vermillion river2 where the state road3 from Danville via Urbana to Bloomington, crosses the same at or near Strong’s ferry,4 and for no other purpose.5

Part of an act repealed.

Sec. 2. So much of the act referred to in the first section of this act, as comes within the perview of this act be, and the same is hereby repealed.6

Approved March 1st, 1837.

1James H. Lyons introduced HB 84 in the House of Representatives on January 6, 1837. The House passed the bill on February 2. On February 8, the Senate referred the bill to a select committee. The select committee reported back the bill on February 10 with an amendment, in which the Senate concurred. On February 11, the Senate passed the bill as amended. On February 25, the House concurred in the Senate amendment. On March 1, the Council of Revision approved the bill, and the act became law.
Illinois House Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 185, 397, 455, 556, 719, 760, 795; Illinois Senate Journal. 1836. 10th G. A., 1st sess., 348, 370-71, 390, 396, 536, 555.

2Salt Fork is a tributary of the Vermilion River

3State roads were those public roads established or designated by the General Assembly and usually crossed county lines. Only the General Assembly could establish, alter, or abandon state roads, until 1840 and 1841, when the General Assembly gave counties the authority to alter or to abandon state roads upon petition by a majority of voters in the area of the change.
An Act concerning Public Roads, sec. 9; An Act Authorizing Commissioners’ Courts to Alter, Change, and Relocate State Roads; An Act concerning Public Roads.

4A ferry over Salt Fork owned by Cyrus Strong.
J. R. Stewart, ed., Standard History of Champaign County Illinois (Chicago and New York: Lewis, 1918), 1:145.

5On February 10, 1837, the Senate amended the bill by restricting how the County Commissioners' Court of Champaign County could expend the $400 appropriation. Section one of the act of January 31, 1835, had stipulated that the appropriation be applied to building a bridge across the South Fork of the Vermilion River on the state road leading from Danville to Peoria.
In September 1837, Champaign County ordered the bridge to be constructed, and in October, William I. Peters received the contract to build the bridge for the sum of $426.
Standard History of Champaign County Illinois 1:145-46.

6Repealed was that portion of the first section of the act that stipulated how the $400 was to be expended. The act of January 31, 1835 amended an act passed by the General Assembly in 1831 appropriating portions of the revenue realized from the sale of the Saline Reserve Lands for public works. Selling portions of the Saline Reserve Lands and appropriating the proceeds for public works was a forerunner of the Illinois Internal Improvement System. In the winter of 1830-31, the General Assembly passed a resolution asking Congress to allow the state to sell 20,000 acres in Gallatin County. The act passed in 1831 came in anticipation that Congress would acquiesce in the General Assembly’s request. The act appropriated portions of the revenue arising from the anticipated sale to twenty-six counties, including $400 to Vermilion County for a bridge across the Vermilion River. In 1833, the General Assembly formed Champaign County out of Vermilion County, and the place upon which the County Commissioners’ Court of Vermilion County was to expend the $400 became part of Champaign County. The act of January 31, 1835 transferred the appropriation and power to construct the bridge to the County Commissioners’ Court of Champaign County.
Congress granted its permission to sell the 20,000 acres, and as of January 1841, agents had paid $9,956.50 into the State Treasury from such land sales. Of this sum, the state had distributed $8,408.08 to the different counties listed in the act.
“An Act Appropriating a Portion of the Avails Arising from the Sale of the Saline Lands, in Gallatin County, to Internal Improvement,” 16 February 1831, The Laws of Illinois (1831), 14-15; U.S. House Journal. 1830. 21st Cong., 2nd sess., 14 February 1831, 302; “Report of the Committee on the Salines and Saline Lands,” 12 January 1841, llinois Senate Reports. 1840. 12th G. A., 219.